Whisper of the Heart

Genre: Romance, School, Anime

Summary: This is a very cute romantic story. The protagonist of the story Tsukishima Shizuku loves reading and spends a lot of time in the library. She keeps noticing that a guy named Amasawa Seiji has been taking out the same books as her, before her in the library, from his name always being stamped above hers in the book's card.

She begins to wonder what kind of person he is and kinda develops a crush on the fictional Seiji Amasawa she has created in her head. A quiet, dignified, kind person.

She translates the song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (John Denver. Help me for I kinda adore that song. >_>) for her best friend who is in the choir. While doing so she makes up a parody version "Concrete Roads" based on her own neighborhood. By mistake she leaves the lyrics behind in a library book on a bench in school. When she returns to get it she finds a strange boy reading it. The boy makes what she takes for an insulting comment on her "Concrete Roads' causing her to prance off in a huff.

Now a lot of stuff happens including Shizuku following Moon (a chubby cat) to a strange shop where a kind old man lives, and meeting Baron (a cat figurine with a tragic past). Then the kind old man turns out to be the strange boy's grandfather.

And guess who the strange boy turns out to be? Yup. Non other than Amasawa Seiji.

Review: I adore this to bits. It's calm, quiet, childish and dreamy. It's also quite old being released, apparently when I was four. It's kinda ridiculous, the story line, and makes my inner cynic cringe and scoff at it like anything, but what I love about this is it makes me believe that stuff this ridiculously cheesy is possible and makes me actually want it to happen.




SPOILERS

{Fablyyyy tasuketekureeeeyyy~ Can you put this part under the spoiler alert thing? I lost the tutorial notepad thing. Again. T_T *looks pleadingly*}

I like the way the entire story folds out.

Shizuku realizes that it’s him waaay after she meets him. So she suddenly blurts out that he can’t be the silent, kind Seiji (in her head), but the actual Seiji is pretty cool too. He wants to become a violin maker. And he happens to be totally in love with her tooo. He wants to Europe and to learn how to make violins. Shizuku realizes that she has no aspirations like he has and feels ashamed, and wants to discover her own dream.

So in the two month apprenticeship that Seiji goes on to see whether he has what it takes to be a violin maker Shizuku tests herself by writing a story with the ‘Baron’ as the hero, titled 'Whisper of the Heart' [Although the Japanese term more literally it means ‘If You Listen Closely’] Seiji's grandfather encourages her and her parents are really supportive too although her grades dropped during the writing.

Anyway she discovers that she does indeed have a talent too. Although at the moment it is still raw and unpolished, she resolves to work harder towards the future now that she has tested herself.

When Seiji comes back from Italy they go together to see the sunrise. One of the coolest things is that in this movie, when they are going up a hill, she is riding on the back of his bike. He says that he had promised himself that he would carry her up the hill. Then she jumps off and says that she’s not going to be any mans burden, and helps him push the bike up the hill, so that they are both working together. Yay feminism in old Animes! Anyway they get to the place they are going to and he asks her to marry him. (When they are like, twelve -__-‘) Which makes me roll my eyes like anything now, and yes it sounds lame but when you are watching the movie it’s not that bad because the entire movie is so damn sweet.

This is one of my sweet-mushy-feeling animes. Particularly good to watch at dawn when you're feeling pfftish. Works every time!

Rating: 7/10

Quotes:
*blank* because I need to watch this again, clearly.

Note: This is me practicing my editing on a review/rant that's around 3 years old. I left the text more or less the same as it was then, but Oh the Butchery-of-Grammar,-Spelling-and-Punctuation. I didn't think I could be worse, but apparently I have been. -__-'
The omitting of vowels and letters in anything other than text messages is just plain annoying.　自分　が　イラって　する。＞＿＜

And yes, I am on a mission to clear out all the draft posts here/feel accomplished about something. Or am I just procrastinating to avoid homework? And the tagging system here's getting on my nerves again, so am thinking of going on a Great Purge and fixing stuff and making it the same as song-stories here too. Fably, a tag cloud please?